Illustration: Granger Historical Picture Archive/Alamy Stock Photo
In the 1860s schoolteachers were obliged to complete a daily log to record any unusual event. Schooling was not free and many poor children only got an education through the altruism of Quakers, Wesleyans and other non-conformists who were prepared to sponsor them.
One of the regular entries for a junior school in Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, was the total number of children who had taken any lessons that week, and the average attendance. Sometimes a measles or smallpox epidemic was the reason given for low numbers, but most frequently it was the weather.
In heavy rain or snow half the pupils failed to show up. For the entry that said “deep snow” absence was perhaps understandable but from October to the end of March the main reasons were “rain”, “cold” or simply “inclement weather.”
No explanation was given as to why the weather caused such disruption but other sources make it clear. Poor children in Victorian times had thin clothing, and often no coats or shoes. Trudging in the rain to school through the mud on unsurfaced roads in winter would not be good for their health. On one day, when only a third of the pupils turned up, normal lessons were suspended so “all the children could sit as close as possible to the fire.”
